Shifting materials: variability, homogeneity and change in the beaded ornaments of the Western Zhou.

Hommel, Peter ; Sax, Margaret

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Introduction

Following the violent transition between the Shang (1600-1045 BC) and Zhou (1046-221 BC) dynasties, significant changes in the cultural and political focus of ancient Chinese society can be seen reflected in the behaviour of the rising elite. These changes included widespread transformations in funerary practice and ceremonial dress, as a fashion for beads amongst the Zhou and their allies grew into a major ornamental tradition in Central China. For a few centuries, beads were used en masse as rich burial furnishings and elaborate costume ornaments in ways that were quite foreign to the traditions of their predecessors in the Central Plain. It has been suggested that the distinctive forms of these artefacts, and the use of materials such as carnelian and faience, not only reflect the borderland origins of the Zhou themselves, but also attest to an enduring interactive relationship between ancient China, its neighbours, and a wider Eurasian world (Rawson 1996, 2008, 2010, 2013a & b; Braghin 1998; Salviati 2002; Huang 2012; Hommel et al. 2013).

In this paper we approach the remarkable beaded assemblages of the Western Zhou period as composite artefacts with composite life histories. By examining variability in forms, techniques and the use of materials alongside wider changes in the way the sets were assembled and arranged, we can identify shifting patterns of procurement and preference. Emerging out of the entangled web of social and technological choices (e.g. Pfaffenberger 1992), these patterns enable us to explore the extent and character of Zhou interaction as a reflection of a complex, dynamic relationship between craft production and political behaviour.

Methodology

The identification of materials and technical practices was a central part of the broad survey of bead assemblages undertaken for this study. The initial identification of materials was based primarily upon direct visual observation (colour, lustre, structure and fracture, etc.) (Sax 1991, 1996, 2001). Wherever possible, this was supplemented by optical microscopy and combined with indirect inferences about composition and hardness, derived from relative patterns of weathering and surface wear. It did not include instrumental analysis. Observations of technical variability were similarly based on visual examination and optical microscopy; in addition, detailed silicone moulds were prepared as part of an on-going microscopic study of production processes and micro-wear (Sax & Ji 2013; Sax et al. in prep.). A visual summary of the bead terminology used in this paper is included for reference (Figure 1).

Materials

The archaeological basis for this study was material excavated from elite cemeteries of the semi-autonomous principalities or states that made up the political empire of the Western Zhou (Khayutina in press). Bead sets from the burial grounds of the Yan state at Liulihe (held at the Capital Museum), the Peng state near Hengshui (held at the National Museum), and the recently discovered Ba state cemetery at Dahekou (held at the Shanxi Museum) were examined and compared with material from the Jin Marquis cemetery at Beizhao (held at the National Museum, Shanxi Museum and Shanxi Institute of Archaeology, Houma Field Station) (Figure 2). Observations made in the field were supplemented with reference to the literature, in particular the recently republished 'jade wares' from Yu state cemeteries near Baoji and the early Jin state cemetery at Tianma-Qucun (Lu & Hu 1988; PKU & Shanxi IA 2000; ACSAC 2010).

Although beads have been found in elite tombs around the Zhou royal centres (Guo 1964: 66; Zhang et al. 2007), extensive looting over the centuries has rendered meaningful comparison with these assemblages difficult, especially for the earliest periods (Thorp 1980). Instead we focus on more complete assemblages preserved elsewhere in Zhou territory, beginning at its north-eastern periphery.

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Bead assemblages

Yan state, Liulihe, Fangshan district, Beijing (late eleventh-early tenth century BC)

In 1975, at the site of Liulihe, a group of 179 beads and pendants was excavated from tomb M251, dated to the turn of the first millennium BC and attributed to a senior minister of the Yan state (Figure 3 a--b) (Beijing BCR 1995; Li 2006). This is one of the earliest significant bead assemblages of the Western Zhou period and its location at the edge of the Zhou political domain highlights the widespread interest in beads among the new elite. The group has been reconstructed as a three-strand bib necklace (Figure 4), though a similar mass of beads and cowrie-shell pendants from a slightly later grave at Liulihe has been more convincingly reconstructed as an elaborate multi-stranded collar (Figure 3c) (Zhao et al. 1996: pl. 6).

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The beads in this set were made using a range of materials, predominantly carnelian and turquoise, but also nephrite jade, microcline feldspar (amazonite) and other blue-green stones. The materials used are themselves quite varied, and both beads and pendants display a wide variety of distinctive forms and production styles. The carnelian group, for example, ranges in colour from orange to dark red-brown, and in clarity from cloudy to almost transparent. The group consists primarily of irregularly shaped oblate beads with broad conical or biconical perforations and groups of short cylindrical/sub-cylindrical beads with comparatively consistent diameters, well-polished sides, and plain unilateral perforations. The rest of the carnelian group is made up of various larger and more finely finished beads, including several long, truncated biconical beads with concave profiles, reminiscent of sections of bamboo. Taken as a whole, the set seems disordered, the result of ad hoc collection rather than preconceived design.

Focusing on variation within the pendants from this set, Braghin (1998) reached the same conclusion, suggesting that many were considerably older than the burial in which they were deposited, perhaps inherited as heirlooms, acquired as gifts, taken from the living or looted from the dead. This pattern is discussed widely in other contexts with reference to jade (e.g. Rawson 1997) but has rarely been considered in relation to beads (though see Salviati 2002; Rawson 2013a; and, in a different context, Woodward 2002).

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In contrast to the long tradition of jade-working, the use of carnelian beads prior to the first millennium BC is limited in scale and peripheral to Central China, focused within the arc of mountains, semi-desert and steppe which form its northern and western borders (Figure 5). Though occasional hoards of nephrite beads are known, only a few small groups of carnelian beads have been recovered from Shang tombs in and around the Central Plain (Institute of Archaeology 1980; Li & Hwang 2013) (Figure 6). These have been cited as evidence of interaction with contemporary societies in Inner Mongolia and the Manchurian Plain, perhaps as an adjunct to more significant exchanges of marriage partners between the elite of Central China and its neighbours to the north and west (Linduff 1996). These 'foreign beads are technologically similar to many of the roughly worked carnelian beads recovered from the tombs of the Yan state, perhaps suggesting that similar forms of interaction were being maintained into the early Western Zhou period.

Considering that the territory of the Yan state is often described as a frontier colony of the Zhou, installed at the edge of their political control (Li 2006; Sun 2006), this hardly seems surprising. However, the characteristics of the group from Liulihe cannot be exclusively explained by external origin. Many of the carnelian beads in this set are quite different in character: more standardised, precisely shaped and finely polished. Of these, the long concave biconical beads are the most distinctive, representing a significant nexus of labour and skill. This form has no obvious referent in earlier material or in contemporary bead assemblages of neighbouring regions, yet it appears as a standard form in early Western Zhou assemblages right across their political territory (Rawson 2008, 2013a; Hommel et al. 2013).

Yu state, Zhuyuangou, Baoji, Shaanxi (late eleventh--early tenth century BC)

One of the grandest and earliest tombs (M13) at the cemetery of Zhuyuangou on the western borders of the Central Plain contained a necklace composed almost entirely of these longer beads (Figure 7) (Lu & Hu 1988; Kakudo 2008). Although a second burial in the same tomb contained a unique necklace of turquoise and white stone beads (possibly limestone) (ACSAC 2010: 326-27), the composition of the carnelian necklace is more typical of those in other tombs at this site. It is somewhat smaller, less elaborate and less varied than the assemblages of the Yan state, made predominantly from carnelian and accompanied, in most cases, by a few small, roughly shaped turquoise beads (Lu & Hu 1988; ACSAC 2010). As at Liulihe, many of the early groups at Zhuyuangou appear to contain material produced within different technological traditions, and small numbers of irregularly-shaped carnelian beads were noted alongside more uniform groups of short cylinders, barrel-shaped beads and various longer bicones.

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The dominance of carnelian at Zhuyuangou may be related partly to its proximity, both geographical and socio-political, to communities in and around the Hexi corridor. These groups, referred to as the Siwa and Siba cultures, form part of a succession of carnelian bead-using cultures stretching back into the early third millennium BC (Figure 5) (Huang 2012; Rawson 2013b). However, while the preference for carnelian and some of the smaller beads may have been acquired through the connections with the north and west, the longer and more finely finished beads (especially the bicones) have no parallels in these areas, where hard stones represent only minor components of bead assemblages dominated by bone and limestone (Debaine-Francfort 1995; Hung 2011). The sudden abundance of carnelian at Baoji in the early Western Zhou period, therefore, remains striking and it seems likely that much of this material was acquired through other networks, perhaps related to new socio-political alliances with the Central Plain rather than established connections to the north-west.

In all likelihood, the same cannot be said of the faience beads that enter the material repertoire in the final phase of burial at Zhuyuangou (e.g. M9) (Lu & Hu 1988; Kakudo 2008). While these beads represent some of the earliest vitreous materials in China, the use of faience in bead production has a much longer heritage in the west, and became widespread in the Eurasian steppe zone during the second millennium BC (Kuzmina 2008). It has, therefore, been suggested that the sudden appearance of this material at the western edge of early Zhou China is likely to be connected with wider processes of technological transmission from the west (Rawson 1996, 2013a). Analyses of the faience beads from early Western Zhou tombs at Baoji and the cemetery of Yujiawan in Gansu seem to support this view, suggesting that some early faience beads in China were indeed manufactured in western Asia (Brill et al. 1991a & b; Zhang & Ma 2009). However, on the basis of a later shift in glaze chemistry, these studies also concluded that during the tenth century BC, faience production became localised within China, probably at a significant scale.

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The appearance of faience beads at Baoji marks the first stage in a widespread transformation of bead use and bead production among the Zhou. During the tenth century BC, a gradual change in the repertoire of materials was accompanied by an increasing scale of production and standardisation of forms and techniques. In later tombs around Baoji, we see these patterns clearly, though beads continue to be worn primarily as necklaces (ACSAC 2010: 156-57, 188-89). Further into the Central Plain, the same trends in standardisation and scale are also accompanied by the development of an increasingly coherent group of complex formal arrangements used to adorn the head and body (Figure 8).

'Tixingpai' and the Eurasian Steppe (early--mid second millennium BC onwards)

One of the earliest of these arrangements is defined by a perforated trapezoidal plaque, or tixingpai, from which around 10 free-hanging strings of beads were suspended (Figure 8d). Though often splayed out in museum displays, these vertical strings were clearly intended to hang down as a dense cascading tassel, their beads ordered to create bold, horizontal bands of colour (Rawson 2013a). Although some of the other arrangements have been found in both male and female graves, the tixingpai are exclusively associated with women and provide a clear context for the discussion of changing material usage into the later Western Zhou period.

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Unlike some other complex arrangements (Figure 8a-c), tixingpai sets have no obvious heritage in China and, like faience, their origins have been tied to the west, where structurally similar artefacts have been found in the graves of chariot-using herding communities of the second millennium BC (Huang 2012; Rawson 2013a; see also Gening et al. 1992; Kupryanova 2008). While these forms fell out of use in Central China during the first millennium BC, it is interesting to note that similar traditions of elaborate adornment have remained a feature of female marital costume and ceremonial dress among pastoralist communities across the Eurasian Steppe zone until recent times (Kupryanova 2008; Usmanova 2010). Though a discussion of these artefacts is far beyond the scope of this article, their widespread presence underlines the potential significance of these Western Zhou beads within a wider Eurasian context.

Jin state, Tianma-Qucun and Beizhao, near Yicheng, Shanxi (tenth century BC)

The first tixingpai arrangements in China occur in a number of early-mid tenth century BC tombs at the Jin state cemeteries of Tianma-Qucun (e.g. M6214) (Figure 9) and Beizhao (M113) (Rawson 2010; Huang 2012). These sets are broadly contemporary with the bead assemblages from Liulihe and Zhuyuangou described above and are comparable in composition and variety (PKU & Shanxi IA 2000: 424; Shang et al. 2001). The principal differences seen were the inclusion of perforated cowrie shells or imitations in stone in the sets (also seen in later burials at Liulihe [95F15M2]), and the more prominent use of a widening range of stones, including serpentine, calcite, fluorite and possibly gypsum. These were either reported in the literature or observed as part of this study (Zhao et al. 1996; PKU & Shanxi IA 2000; Shang et al. 2001). Most of these materials are significantly softer than carnelian or nephrite, and considerably less labour-intensive to work (Sax et al. 2000). Though representing a comparatively small part of these assemblages, softer stones become increasingly important towards the end of the tenth century BC and, together with faience, they begin to form a major component of later Western Zhou bead assemblages, used alongside or instead of carnelian, nephrite and turquoise. This shift is associated with further standardisation, as individual bead forms, bead sets and even entire grave assemblages appear to become increasingly 'matched'.

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Peng state, Hengshui, Shanxi (end of the tenth--early ninth century BC)

These shifts are exemplified in the tixingpai sets from the nearby cemetery of the Peng state at Hengshui. Although the rulers of this state are thought to have been outsiders with strong connections to the north, it is apparent that they had close political ties to the Zhou centre. Indeed, the largest middle Western Zhou tomb at the site (Ml) is attributed to a very high status female of the Zhou royal lineage, the consort of one of the lords of Peng (Shanxi IA 2006; Khayutina 2010). The full report has not yet been completed but it is known that the thousands of beads recovered from this tomb include several necklaces and tixingpai sets (Huang 2012).

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The most striking thing about these sets is their coherent appearance, which suggests that they were designed and worn as matching pairs. The materials used to produce them, though differing in relative abundance between the sets, are remarkably uniform across the assemblage. Carnelian remains important but, with the exception of a few long, barrel-shaped and biconical beads, it comprises uniform groups of regular, short cylindrical and barrel-shaped beads. Turquoise was sometimes employed as an inlay material, but was not used for the production of beads. Instead, blue faience was combined with various softer stones, principally banded calcite and a distinctive, highly translucent, yellow mineral, tentatively identified as fluorite or possibly serpentine.

One set (Figure 10) was made almost entirely from these softer materials. Of its 320 beads only 6 are carnelian, the rest comprising uniform cylinders of the yellow mineral interspersed with pairs of narrow, blue faience tubes. Cowrie shells are attached to the ends of strings and tied in clusters around the middle of each string, forming a raised band of shells across the centre of the arrangement. The uniform colour, consistent matt surface finish and size of the yellow beads, and the consistent texture and manufacturing technique seen in the faience strongly suggest specialised production. These beads seem to represent the output of a limited number of workshops or perhaps even specific production events. This growing standardisation in materials and technologies was not only attested at Hengshui, but was also seen at many other contemporary sites across the Zhou territory.

Jin Marquis cemetery, Beizhao, near Yicheng, Shanxi (mid ninth century BC onwards)

The bead material from surviving middle Western Zhou tombs at Beizhao conforms well to the patterns described above. The variety and scale of the formal arrangements is, however, substantially greater and the assemblage from the well-known tomb M92 provides a useful context for discussion. This tomb contained a very large collection of beads, plaques and pendants. Part of this has been, somewhat questionably, reconstructed as a complex, web-like headdress and two tixingpai sets, one with an openwork plaque depicting two birds (Figure 11) and the other apparently augmented with several large ge blades (Shang et al. 2001: figs. 18 & 19). Unlike the earlier tixingpai sets from Ml 13, Tianma-Qucun M6214 and Hengshui Ml, the trapezoidal plaques from M92 are made from nephrite rather than ivory or bone and the set was not directly associated with cowries. However, pairs of round tabular beads of brownish-black lignite were strung together to form a horizontal band across the centre of one set. Both sets also contain numerous faience tubes, several of which are augmented with unusual, piped-on protrusions, which have parallels in western Eurasia, albeit at a much earlier date (Rawson 2013a).

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A wide range of materials is employed in the M92 assemblage, including nephrite, steatite/pyrophyllite and many beads of the same yellow mineral seen at Hengshui. The forms present are even more varied: alongside the familiar range of simple carnelian and faience beads, the sets include prismatic and ellipsoidal forms, very long concave bicones, and a range of thick cylinders, often deeply engraved with a helical decoration. Many of the more elaborate forms were made, not in carnelian or nephrite, but in one of the softer stones.

The preference for colour and variety appears to wane towards the end of the ninth century and, though later sets at Beizhao are increasingly impressive in scale, the wide range of materials and forms seen in M92 is rarely repeated, except where there is small-scale reuse of older beads (e.g. M102). Beads in larger assemblages, such as those from M31, M8 and M63, consist almost exclusively of faience, carnelian and steatite/pyrophyllite. It remains unclear whether the return to a more limited range of bead materials and forms reflects differential access to resources, personal preferences, changing alliances or decrees from the Zhou centre.

Discussion

The sudden appearance of bead-rich burials in the Central Plain of China at the end of the eleventh century BC coincides with the rise of the Zhou Dynasty and contrasts with limited evidence of bead-use during the Shang period. Although the Zhou elite adopted many of the customs of their predecessors in the aftermath of their conquest, many were outsiders to the Central Plain and maintained some of their own traditions and systems of value (see Chen 2012). The fashion for beads, the strong preference for carnelian, and the introduction of faience a few generations later all emphasise the persistence of cultural relationships far beyond the direct political control of the early dynasties, stretching into Manchuria, Inner Mongolia, Qinghai, the Hexi corridor and beyond.

Some of the beads in early Western Zhou tombs may be a direct result of these connections, but it is also clear that the use and production of beads was adapted rapidly to the new dynastic context, playing an important role in the political strategies of the Zhou court. Even in the early stages of Zhou rule there appear to be underlying flows of more standardised material and novel forms with no obvious referent in earlier traditions of bead production around the Central Plain. The finely made, concave biconical beads are particularly distinctive in this respect, and their sudden appearance in elite tombs across the Zhou territories may suggest a degree of control over the production, or at least the redistribution, of certain classes of beads.

Elite sponsorship of specialised bead production and control over the redistribution of products has been reported in many contexts worldwide, including the famous long carnelian beads of the Indus Valley, made as gifts for the deities by just a few highly specialised individuals (Matarasso & Roux 2000). The control of production by the elite has also been suggested as an explanation for patterns seen at one of the few stone workshops known from the Western Zhou period, at Qijiacun in the Zhouyuan, where craffworkers, bound to elite families, were engaged in production of soft-stone arc-shaped pendants (huang) and perforated discs (bi) at a scale far beyond local requirements, presumably feeding into wider networks of political redistribution (Sun 2008). Stone beads, along with other exotic materials such as cowrie shells, may have been produced or acquired in similar contexts and used politically, perhaps as part of marital exchanges, to help cement ties between communities and draw outsiders and new allies closer to the centre.

Whereas many early sets were assembled using beads and pendants made in different technological traditions, by the end of the tenth century this pattern was changing. Individual sets and even entire assemblages become increasingly standardised, apparently created en masse according to preconceived designs. This kind of coherence and uniformity is clearly attested in the material from Hengshui, though similar patterns are seen in many contemporary assemblages. There is also remarkable consistency in the range of materials employed: these seem so similar across the Zhou territory that it may be justified to consider not only standardisation in production, but also centralisation in procurement as an outcome of political control, perhaps managed directly by the Zhou court.

The trend towards faience and softer stones in the middle and late Western Zhou is equally open to interpretation. Possibly earlier sources of raw materials were exhausted or supply lines interrupted. Perhaps the properties and associations of the 'new' materials simply made them more ideologically or aesthetically desirable. However, given the plausible association between beads and brides, recent discussions of marriage alliance in the Western Zhou period may offer another context for interpretation.

It seems, on the basis of references in bronze inscriptions from the period, that there was a strong tradition throughout the Western Zhou elite to create and reinforce long-standing political ties through marriage alliance (Khayutina in press). These alliances were typically exogamous and were made not only within the clan structure of the Zhou themselves, but also between the Zhou and their neighbours (Chen 2009; Khayutina in press). This practice is seen clearly in the Peng state cemetery at Hengshui where the lord of a comparatively minor non-Zhou 'state' was wedded to a woman of the Zhou royal lineage who was ultimately buried in a tomb considerably larger than his own, bedecked with beads (Khayutina 2010). Also interesting for our purposes is the observation that there is a significant increase in the frequency with which marriage alliances are recorded during the middle and late Western Zhou. While the significance of this increase is open to interpretation (see Khayutina in press), it does parallel some of the major trends in bead material preference identified in this study. It is tempting to interpret this move towards softer and more readily manufactured materials as an outcome of political networks that were increasingly under stress, a response to struggling systems of hard-stone bead production that were unable to keep pace with demand. Whether this temptation is justified or not remains to be seen.

Conclusion

The interpretations offered here are only possible explanations for the patterns identified in our research. The situation is probably far more complex. Nevertheless, these patterns highlight the potential value of these artefacts to further our understanding of this period, and clearly demand more comprehensive study, combining analytical approaches to the materials with detailed technological characterisation. These confluent streams of research will enable the suggestions of standardisation, centralisation and change presented here to be tested, and their wider relationship with the socio-political behaviour of the Zhou elite to be explored more fully.

It is of primary importance to understand better the range of rocks and minerals involved in the production of beads in ancient China, and it will be essential to consider the chemical and mineralogical composition of these materials in more detail. Though questions of absolute geological provenance for many of the materials discussed are beyond immediate reach, even basic information on the similarity of individual types of material, both within and between assemblages, would be extremely valuable for our understanding of strategies of raw material procurement and production organisation.

To investigate evidence of standardisation, and to explore the integration of new' materials and ideas into existing manufacturing systems, it is also essential that we explore further the technical side of bead production. Through studies of microscopic tool marks preserved on the surface of carnelian and nephrite beads, we can begin to identify the techniques employed in their production, and make comparisons with other stone-working technologies within and beyond the Central Plain.

Whatever the results of these investigations, it is hoped that this paper has succeeded in drawing further attention to the remarkable beads of the Western Zhou as material of considerable importance within the archaeology of Eurasia and eminently worthy of wider investigation.

Acknowledgements

Our grateful thanks to Li Boqian (Peking University), Ji Kunzhang (Shanxi PIA, Houma Fieldstation) and Shi Jinming (Shanxi Museum). Thanks also to Ian Mercer and Andrew Middleton for comments on mineralogical identifications, Beichen Chen and Xuan Chen (University of Oxford) for practical assistance in the field and subsequent help with translation and data collection. Also to Jessica Rawson, for her support during the planning of this research and thoughtful commentary on earlier drafts. Any errors or omissions are the responsibility of the authors. This project was supported by grants from the Leverhulme Trust and the Reed Foundation.

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Received: 8 August 2013; Accepted: 9 January 2014; Revised: 1 April 2014

Peter Hommel (1) & Margaret Sax (2)

(1) Institute of Archaeology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX12PG, UK (Email: peter.hommel@arch.ox.ac.uk)

(2) The British Museum, London WC1B 3DG, UK (Email: msax@thebritishmuseum.ac.uk)